Supported by Rewilding Europe, nature-based tourism company Wildlife Adventures has grown spectacularly over the last nine years, with burgeoning benefits for nature and communities in Italy’s Central Apennines. Such support can help similar European businesses follow in the company’s footsteps.

Encouraging and enabling people to live alongside bears and other wildlife in the Central Apennines of Italy is critical to the recovery of local nature. By fostering dialogue and collaborative solutions, bear-smart community committees will help to promote such coexistences across the landscape.

In the heart of the Central Apennines rewilding landscape, the residents of Pettorano sul Gizio are benefitting from lives that are increasingly entwined with local nature.

The Rewilding Apennines team have begun operating a supplementary feeding station for griffon vultures in the Monte Velino Nature Reserve. By ensuring a safe supply of food for the birds, the station will support the recovery of the species, and is a step towards realising a landscape where vultures are sustained entirely by the carcasses of wild animals.

Over 100 participants from Italy and beyond came together to discuss rewilding-related topics at a three-day seminar in the Central Apennines last week. The event helped the local rewilding team raise awareness of rewilding and its positive impacts, and to establish and strengthen relationships with a wide range of stakeholders.

Earlier this summer, nearly 400 juvenile crayfish were released into the Verde River in the Central Apennines rewilding landscape in Italy. This is good news for this threatened species and will help to enhance the condition of the river and local ecosystem.

The welcome and inspirational return of wildlife species to European landscapes presents a range of challenges, as evidenced by recent poisoning incidents in the Central Apennines of Italy. By ensuring people benefit from nature – and by educating and enforcing – these challenges can be overcome.

A new study has confirmed that Marsican brown bears play a valuable role promoting the Central Apennines as nature-based tourism destination.

A diverse event calendar saw the Rewilding Apennines team engage with a wide range of people and local communities in 2022, helping to promote rewilding. Their efforts are driving the rewilding movement forward, with real momentum going into 2023.

Italian and Greek partners in the LIFE Bear-Smart Corridors initiative recently visited Canada to learn about Bear Smart Communities in British Columbia. The insights acquired and collaborative ethos developed will enhance rewilding efforts.